by Roger Taylor
Gryss had taken Farnor's arm and was directing him to a grassy embankment. ‘That was Rannick,’ he replied savagely, sitting Farnor down and crouching to examine him. ‘That was our sour faced village lout coming to full flower. His family taint breaking out in him like a great boil.'
'But ...'
'But nothing. You saw him. Somehow, he's in charge there now,’ Gryss said, without turning from his examination of Farnor. ‘And don't ask me how any of it's come about, or how he made those flames. It was no conjurer's trickery for sure. I can feel the heat of them still.’ He shuddered. ‘And that terrible colour as they faded ...'
'And the noise,’ Harlen added.
Gryss nodded. ‘From what he said, I suspect he only learned to make those flames yesterday at ...’ He hesitated and looked at Farnor unhappily. ‘At Farnor's farm.'
Yakob had been pacing up and down, his face dark and frowning, but the reference to Farnor's personal tragedy made him stop and grimace in self-reproach. ‘I'm sorry, Farnor,’ he said. ‘It's just that ... what happened up there frightened me so much it made me forget you're the only one who's really been hurt.'
Farnor was in no mood for such solicitude however. ‘What did happen?’ he demanded. ‘And why are we running away from that murderous dog? I want him ...’ He cried out and pushed Gryss away roughly. ‘Watch what you're doing, you idiot. That hurt.'
Gryss regained his balance, then his hand shot out and slapped Farnor across his already bruised face. ‘And you watch your lip, young Farnor. You nearly got yourself killed, barging in there like that. Not to mention the rest of us for following you.'
'I never asked you ...’ Farnor began.
'Enough!’ Gryss thundered.
Then he abandoned his examination and sat down by his patient, his head in his hands.
No one spoke.
A small bird fluttered to the ground nearby, studied the motionless quartet with a cold yellow eye for a moment and then flew off again.
The rapid pulse of its beating wings made Gryss look up.
'Come on,’ he said, turning back to Farnor and putting a hesitant hand on his shoulder. ‘You've been badly knocked about, and we've all been badly frightened. Let me see if there's anything that needs immediate attention and then we'll go back to my cottage.’ He looked round at Harlen and Yakob. ‘Perhaps before we get there one of us can think of how we're going to break the news to the rest of the village.'
* * * *
Rannick rode slowly through the woods. Outwardly he was icily calm, but inwardly his mood oscillated between craven fear and blinding fury; fear that forces were arising that could oppose him in the fulfilment of his destiny, and fury that he could not identify the source of this opposition.
The demonstration of his new-found powers had seemingly been successful. Certainly it had impressed the men, and it had brought that old fool Gryss and the others literally to their knees. That at least was some consolation. He had been right, and Nilsson wrong. All the villagers needed was a display of power and they would present no future problems. Diplomacy and goodwill were items he might choose to use later as his domain spread, but for now why squander them?
But this was trivial. He snatched his mind back to his main concern. His demonstration had been, in reality, a disaster. He rubbed his arm where Katrin had stabbed him. It had been a savage gash, long and deep, but if he rolled up his sleeve he would see now only a thin, well-healed scar. Since his contact with the creature and the knowledge he had gained thereby, his healing skills had developed incredibly. But he would willingly have given his entire arm for the truth that had been revealed to him as a result of Katrin's fearsome attack.
Revealed then, and made manifest by the destruction of the Yarrance farmhouse and revealed further in the darkness into which he had entered afterwards. The darkness of the strange and secret journey that the spirit of the creature had carried him on, taking him to the places between and beyond the worlds where the power was to be found.
Such knowledge!
His hands tightened about the reins of his horse as he recaptured the ecstasy of his discovery; of the vistas opening before him.
And now...
His rapture became a hollow, ringing mockery.
Now, when the golden road of his destiny was growing ever wider and easier he was opposed.
He opened his mouth and shouted a cry of fury and hatred at the silent will that had come from nowhere and laid its dead hand across the way through which the power came; had unmade that which he had made and taken the great power from him, leaving him only the power of this world.
Birds rose noisily into the air and his horse pranced its forelegs. Rannick reached out and silenced it. The power of this world was sufficient for most things. But...
He reined the horse to a halt. The memory of that other presence loomed dark and ominous in his mind, dominating his every thought, an unexpected shadow across his future. And yet, for all its effectiveness in denying him the power, it had been hesitant, unsure; fearful, almost.
In fact fearful, definitely, he decided.
He clenched his fists. He would not be defied thus! Least of all by some craven interferer. Excuses began to pour into his thoughts. The opposition had taken him unawares, he had been unprepared. It would not happen again, he would be ready for it; he would destroy it if it came again.
But the doubt that permeated his inner ranting enraged him further. Could he risk such another confrontation? Who could say what this other power could do, or from whence it came? He needed to know much more about it.
He knew that the creature, too, had felt it, and felt it powerfully. Yet the very howling of its anger and defiance across the valley heightened the wavering uncertainty that, for the first time, he had sensed in his savage companion.
And it had recognized that which had opposed them! It had known such a power before and feared it. The memory of the creature's doubt mingled with his own to bring his thoughts to their inexorable conclusion; the source of this opposition must be found and destroyed.
He slipped down from his horse and released it. It moved away from him, but it needed no tether to prevent it from wandering for it had been schooled in the consequences of any form of disobedience to its new master. Rannick nodded to himself. He knew now why he had ridden out from the castle after Gryss and the others had left. He had to commune with his dark ally. Had to be close to it. Somewhere silent and away from the oppressive presence of Nilsson and his wretched band.
Together he and the creature must travel the ways between the worlds until the creature scented the source of the power and he, Rannick, identified the will behind it. For it was someone he knew, he was sure. There had been a familiarity about it that kept returning to him, dancing tantalizingly in and out of his awareness.
But who?
He motioned the horse further away. He needed to be free from its swamping animal fears, needed to touch the ground, to be aware of everything about him so that he could be aware of himself and bring a quietness to his thinking.
He began to walk through the trees. His horse followed him reluctantly, keeping a considerable distance behind him.
Was it one of Nilsson's men? It could have been, Rannick supposed. His acceptance by them was not as complete as they pretended. Some were wholeheartedly his, their lustful greed leaking from them like a rich incense. But others paid only a dutiful obeisance, shot through with fear and doubt.
But these were of no import; lesser spirits, dispensable should need arise.
The familiarity that he had sensed in the power that had thwarted him returned briefly, flitting nervously at the edge of his consciousness. But it defied examination, vanishing when he turned to confront it.
Frustration and anger rose to cloud his mind for some time. As it gradually waned, he dismissed Nilsson's men. The familiarity had stirred vague images of times long before the arrival of the troop, and, apart from that, any difficulties with Nilsson's men would have shown t
hemselves by now.
No, it was someone in the village.
But who?
The anger bubbled up again, but he forced it down ruthlessly, forging it into an icy hatred.
Gryss? Yakob? Harlen? Farnor? Surely not. Three old men and a battered, broken youth who could scarcely stand. There could be no opposition there. The merest touch would scatter their pathetic spirits like dried leaves in autumn.
But who?
He snarled as the question pressed in on him. It did not matter who. He could not answer the question here and now, so he would not allow it to be asked again.
He walked on steadily, following the warm lure of the creature's will. As he passed through a small clearing he found himself moving to its shaded edge, instinctively avoiding the sunshine. He permitted himself a bitter smile at this response to the creature's dark nature, which increasingly mingled with his own; it had little love for the daylight, and none at all for such brightness.
Soon, my pet, he thought. Soon I'll be with you. We can rest together in the darkness of your lair and ready ourselves for the hunt tonight.
A lustful anticipation flooded through him.
* * * *
In the absence of any inspiration on the weary journey back from the castle, Gryss broke the news of the murder of Garren and Katrin and the seizure of the valley simply and bluntly to a hastily gathered meeting of the Council.
There were as many reactions as there were Councillors present, ranging from the fatalistic to the massively belligerent. Unlike the last meeting, Gryss did not let the uproar continue too long. Then it had seemed that time was ahead of them and that they could patiently await events. Now those events had happened and, they being more desperate in character than anything he could have possibly imagined, Gryss saw no benefit to be gained by allowing a gentle proceeding.
'We have no choice but to accept the reality of this,’ he shouted above the din, going straight to the conclusion that the previous meeting had reached. He repeated it as the noise fell. ‘We have no choice, my friends. We're trapped in our own valley. Trapped by armed and ruthless men who themselves have been subdued by one of our own.'
The mood of the meeting tumbled between stunned shock at the untimely and brutal deaths of Garren and Katrin—some wept openly—and, initially, open disbelief of the news of Rannick's transformation. However, being valley dwellers, the Councillors had that profound pragmatism that comes as a consequence of living close to the mysteries of the land, and none would fly in the face of the combined testimony of Gryss, Harlen and Yakob, however much they would have wished to. Further, Rannick was known by all and, eventually, both shock and disbelief turned into anger. Gryss allowed some time to be spent in the general telling and retelling of old tales about the ill-natured labourer and his forebears, and in declamations of how none of this would have happened if he had been treated this way, or that way, or forbidden to do this, or allowed to do that, and so on.
But he was stark in his description of the probable fate of anyone who chose to consider Rannick as the man they all imagined they knew.
'You'll die for your pains, and none too pleasantly either. He regarded it as an honour for Garren and Katrin that they died by his hand.'
The very quietness of the utterance of this revelation brought a fearful silence to the meeting.
'Murder's murder,’ someone ventured after a while. ‘It's the King's business, I suppose. As is the seizing of his castle. We should get word to the capital.'
'I know,’ Gryss said. ‘But Jeorg was caught trying to do just that and he only escaped with his life because of some whim on Rannick's part. Now he's said categorically that anyone who tries to leave will be killed.’ He shrugged his shoulders unhappily. ‘I don't know what to say, let alone what to do.’ He looked at the waiting faces of his friends sitting around the Council table. Their fear and anger were almost palpable. It came over him that all he wanted to do was run away, go back to his cottage, close the door behind him and just ... sit; leave the problem to someone else. For a moment he found himself wishing fervently that this was all some awful dream and that he would wake up to the sun streaming through his window and to the everyday problems of life that had seemed to be such a penance but a few weeks ago.
But none of his inner turmoil reached either his face or his voice. Instead he said, calmly and authoritatively, ‘I think what we have to do is to make sure that everyone understands what has happened and to ensure that no one does anything foolish. In my estimation, crossing Rannick would bring dire consequences not only on the person who did it but on anyone else nearby. You all know what a spiteful swine he was.’ He closed his eyes for a moment in self-reproach. ‘And no language like that, even in private.’ There was a stir amongst his listeners. ‘I mean it,’ he said sharply. ‘Those ... bandits ... call him Lord Rannick, presumably for a damn good reason. You'll do the same if you ...'
Several disparaging voices interrupted him.
'Lord Rannick, indeed! I'll lord him, the ...'
'Yes you will,’ Gryss said, before any of the protests could gather momentum. He pointed to Harlen and Yakob. ‘You'll do what we did. You'll lord him, and you'll go down on your bended knees and call him wonderful or whatever else he wants, if you've got two grains of sense in your head. Trust me. You want no demonstration of what he can do.'
His anger subdued the outburst, but other voices had been released by it.
'We can't sit around and do nothing,’ they said, quietly and reasonably, echoing Marna's plaint.
'I know,’ Gryss said, wearily. He stared down at the table helplessly for some time. ‘But all I can think of is watch and wait. Whatever dreadful game's being played here, we're small pieces and easily removed from the board. If we avoid trouble, appease them a little, we'll probably be able to find out more about them. Get to know how they think ...’ He managed a rueful smile. ‘Perhaps in a week or so, we might be a great deal wiser than we are now, and far better placed to decide what to do.'
It was an unsatisfactory answer, he knew, but he had no other.
'You don't appease a mad dog,’ someone muttered.
'And you don't pull its tail either, unless you've got a stick big enough to deal with it,’ Gryss retorted, impatiently.
It was virtually the end of the meeting.
Later a large crowd gathered on the village green to hear the same news. The light was fading when Gryss arrived and, as he climbed on to a table that someone had taken from the inn, a few stars were beginning to appear in the purpling eastern sky. They were mirrored by a sprinkling of lanterns and small sunstones amongst his audience.
He told them what had happened as he had told the Council, and their response was the same, though it was louder and wilder and the clamour lasted a great deal longer. More than once some of the younger men had to be restrained from dashing off immediately to storm the castle and drag Rannick to justice. Gryss found the experience of his many years as a negotiator of disputes, as a calmer of quarrels and a soother of hurts sorely stretched. He prevailed, however: here a sharp command, a caustic rebuttal; there a friendly word, a laughing dismissal. Words, gestures, expressions all played their part in swaying the crowd away from hasty action and towards quieter, more serious considerations.
He ended, ‘I'll run second to no one in my love for Garren and Katrin Yarrance, or in my desire to see justice done. But Katrin herself saw the truth clearly enough. “They're all fighting men. Used to brutality and stabbing and killing. There's none in the whole valley could stand against any of them and hope to live should need arise."’ He paused. ‘Her words, my friends. Tragically accurate. And now these men are obeying the orders of Rannick.’ He paused again to allow the words to sink in. ‘To move against them will gain us only the same fate as she suffered. Living is the way to honour the dead, not dying. Her own son was almost killed when he sought in his grief to confront Rannick. We must be circumspect in all things, no matter what our inner feelings. We find ourse
lves locked in the pen with a wild bull. Watchfulness, silence and stillness will be our best allies.'
His endeavours, though, left him ill at ease as he watched the crowd disperse into the night, pale faces fading into the gloom to become shadows through which flickered the lights of the lanterns and sunstones.
'I feel as much a murderer as Rannick,’ he said softly to Harlen as he took his supporting hand and clambered off the table.
'What do you mean?’ Harlen asked.
Gryss shook his head. ‘I don't know,’ he said sadly. ‘I just feel ...’ He brought his two fists down on the table. ‘I feel like getting my old axe out, marching up to the castle and hacking my way through everything until I get to Rannick, regardless of what happens. And yet I tell them to be calm, to be thoughtful, to do nothing rash. I can't help feeling that I'm betraying them. Continuing to betray them, in fact. Perhaps that's what we should do. Trust the judgement of the youngsters. March up there and fight them.'
Harlen laid a hand on his shoulder, but made no comment.
* * *
Chapter 36
Gryss had returned to his cottage with Yakob and Harlen and the battered and silent Farnor.
'We're all right,’ Gryss had said, by way of hasty reassurance to an alarmed Marna. ‘I'll tell you everything in a moment.'
Then he had given Farnor a more thorough examination than he had been able to do on the road and, finding he was only bruised, ordered him to stay at the cottage and rest.
'I've got to arrange a Council meeting, then a village meeting,’ Gryss said to him, finally. ‘While you're here, help Marna with Jeorg if you can.’ He put his hand to his brow as he spoke. ‘I'll have to see Jeorg's wife, too.’ He closed his eyes and blew out an unhappy breath at this remembrance, but no one volunteered to ease his burden.
Farnor ignored him except for a slight nod that some residual courtesy made him make, and Gryss's face was taut with controlled impatience when he turned to Marna and gestured towards Jeorg's room. ‘How's he been?’ he asked.